Week 5 Run 2 -- Yet Again

[gary_bart]

There goes my last "8 + 8" for at least the time being.

I pushed it a bit, and used the whole of the cool-down-run time to torture myself slowly up a hill that just never ended, at the end. The effort gave me a total 30 minute distance of between 3.5 and 4 km (I have to guess because I lost the mental note I made of the last street I ran past). I think it was something like 3.7 km.

Now I have to modify that course or look for a new one, because on the walk back I noticed that the gate of the house where the dog had threatened me on the way out wasn't latched. A simple push was all it would take to release all those angry fangs. This is a reasonably serious issue here in Durban, because due to the high levels of violent crime, a lot of peoples dogs are not the family pet any more. They'll kill you. (And seeing as our 83 year old neighbour was stabbed to death by some sadistic house robbers in his house earlier this year, I can't bring myself to object too strongly to this misuse of dogs. It's just too ex cathedra, pronouncing on the guard dog keepers out there. I just don't like the idea of dying just because someone "made an oopsy" with the gate). Maybe I'll take a chance in the traffic, and cross to the other side of the road next time. I could work a way of keeping running while doing so.

I don't just go out the garden gate and run up our hill because of dogs. We're on a fairly busy road, but not busy enough to make people properly careful with their dogs. There's an unusually aggressive labrador about 100 m away, whose people are careless with their gate, and then up the top of the hill are 3 bull terriers I've never seen out, but whose gate I've seen wide open far too often.

One option is to run on the highway, but there you get the problem of too many people having bought their licences instead of sitting the test, and each of theirs has their very own ecclectic way of wiping things out with their car. ...

Yes, I must stick with the road I've found, and just go to the opposite side of the road to avoid those guard dogs.

How do you guys deal with dog problems? Or don't you have any?

[misswobble Graduate]

Not to that extent. The worst I have encountered is a muddy paw print on my Nikes from over-enthusiastic dawgs

I don't envy you I must say. Crikey!

[gary_bart in reply to misswobble]

I abandoned one of my routes because at one house there was a chow literally throwing itself against the garage door they have onto the street, trying to get me. It wasn't barking, it was growling. And it really banged that door hard. (Fancy house. Garage doors have windows in them. I think they have four garages at that place).

The worst is my electric bicycle. It turns nice dogs into murder suspects. They don't like the sound of the engine, and can hear it from miles away.

[agedsnailspace Graduate]

Gosh, you certainly have some problems to deal with! Like Misswobble, this isn't a problem I have had to deal with, but I have had to look at solutions for my children when they have travelled. One solution we have used is a battery operated high pitch dog detterent - maybe you could see if you could find something like that to hang from a running belt (maybe you could test it on that lab!).

[gary_bart in reply to agedsnailspace]

I've read of noise based deterrents, and I think something like that might work on the lab. However, the bull terriers are likely to just get angry if you hurt their ears or spray pepper spray at them, etc. Bull terriers are lovely dogs until they go into fight mode. Then they're little monsters.